#dirkdove

many thoughts!

dave's arc in hs is about realizing she hates this role of masculinity/being a hero that bro beat into her (and that he beat it into her), coming to terms with castration symbolism (being Not Masculine), and then symbolically castrating bro by way of dirk. dirk's arc is about fighting between her impulses to control everyone around her & to completely sacrifice herself for her friends, culminating in sacrificing control to dave (via castration)

then in the epilogues etc, when in a position where she thinks she & all her friends are dying (due to degeneration) dirk decides the best way to save everyone (and propogate sburb) is to cast herself as the evil patriarch who dave must kill (by becoming the hero) to save the princess (rose, who dirk sexually abuses to rub in the point about how patriarchy uses the bodies of its daughters). now, disclaimer that i haven't caught up in like a year, but i already think that "defeating" dirk will involve disrupting his plan and not killing him. i also think there's a possibility that this will include dave transitiong. dirk realizing that she's doing all this out of repression could be the cherry on top. why hate yourself & destory everything around you when you can be a girl instead?

in like a non-beyond canon post sburb setting it could also be very sweet & fun. dirk transitioning would be entirely contingent on dave, who i don't think would consider it until june did. who obviously can go into middle age without thinking about it! but i like to hit them with the self-awareness beam. i think dirk & dave would get kind of weird abt exploring femininity around each other like "aaahh am i doing it wrong? she's cooler than me." luckily dave has a lot more women friends she can emulate, and eventually they fall into an equilibrium